Karen’s Travel Blog

Finally leaving Auvelais with our new travelling companions we continued along the commercial waterway still going downhill to Namur. This city, featuring a medieval citadel is at the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse and was established as an important post in Celtic times. The Meuse has its origins in France and flows through […]

In an effort to stop my blog being hijacked by the skipper and am going to devote a little time to explaining to the barging novices the mode of travel on the canals. The skipper has decided my audience wants a bit more than descriptions of our stopping places along the way. So here goes. […]

We finally arrived back at our Joie de Vivre after an epic journey via Singapore to Frankfurt then a train to Brussels and onto Brugge. The 8 hour stop over in Singapore was a trial and the flight to Frankfurt was an hour longer than expected, due to our path being diverted around Ukraine. Landing […]

I always feel a little sad leaving our Joie de Vivre to face the winter months alone, however with the cooler weather starting to bite it is time for these sallows to fly south. After our little jaunt on some of the canals in central Belgium we returned to our winter mooring at Coupure in […]

The beauty of our aqueous home is that you can choose to stay in port or venture to new harbours further afield. After a few days of cleaning and maintenance (varnishing and painting), then visits with our friendly Brugge bargees group the weather turned wintery, so we stayed put for a few weeks. But then […]

After a pretty ordinary summer, with more days of rain than sunshine, with the arrival of autumn the sun decided to grace us with its presence. Our first stop down the canal fron Verne, was Diksmuide, which being located in a pastoral area, is famous for its butter. In 1914 the Germans overran Belgium hurrying […]

I don’t need to tell anyone that Peter and I love a soirée, whether it’s drinks at the yacht club on Friday night, a dinner party or even a catch up for coffee. For the past 6 weeks our social interaction has been limited to short conversations with lock keepers, harbour masters , sales personal […]

The trip from Vlissingen to Middelburg was through 4 lifting bridges and although we were ready to go at 10.30 we were informed by bridge control that the next opening was at 12.45. Oh well should have checked before we left the harbour. Our trip to Middleburg was part of a flotilla of 4 yachts […]

I left the last story with Joie de Vivre moored up in a marina at Zelzate. What was planned to be a 2 day sojourn ended up 8 days while we waited for the part for the hydraulic steering to be delivered. In desperation we caught the bus and train back to Brugge to pick […]

Firstly I’m not complaining, it’s more a weather update from Belgium. But it has rained everyday, bar 3, since we arrived, making the most important accessory, an umbrella. So now to an update on our journey. We are still in the grips of marine services. The engine instrument panel, which was shorting out has been […]